WOMAN AS WITCH 



symbols of woman's work and woman's civilisation, the 

 distaff, the pitchfork, and the broom, not the spear, the 

 axe, and the hammer. Since agriculture in its elements 

 is essentially due to women, hunting and the chase 

 characteristic of men, the emblems of early agriculture 

 would also be closely associated with the primitive 

 goddess. The smaller domestic animals, the goat, the 

 boar, the goose, and the cock and hen, would be con- 

 nected with her worship. The earth, as a symbol of 

 fertility, would be brought into close relationship with 

 the mother deity. She would be a goddess of agri- 

 culture and of child-birth, of reproductivity in the soil, 

 of fecundity in animals, and of fertility in man. Her 

 shrine would be the hearth and fire round which the 

 women spin and weave and cook, or it might be the 

 clearing in the forest, the fructifying stream or well, 

 the hilltop, where originally there was the palisaded 

 dwelling of a group, and where cultivation first ap- 

 peared. The group in such a dwelling would have a 

 common life, common work, and common meals. In 

 particular, the group gatherings would become high 

 festivals, at those lunar and solar changes which mark 

 the seasons and periods of agricultural fruitfulness and 

 animal fertility. Such gatherings, held on the hill- 

 tops, or by ancient trees or springs, would be marked 

 by the performance of religious rites, by the common 

 meal, the choral dance, and in many cases by the ribald 

 song, and by the gross licentiousness which charac- 

 terises the worship of a goddess of fertility. In all 

 these features we should expect to find the women 

 taking an equal, if not a leading part, responsible alike 



